Kimberly Hirsh

I feel like the captioners for Stranger Things (who are doing an awesome job describing the music) should Google any place name on the show followed by “Durham,” just to make sure they’re spelling it correctly.

I am all in on Woodland Goth, y’all.

Woodland. Goth.

Just followed some Trek fan Micro.bloggers from yesterday’s roll call. I’m current on new shows & doing a rewatch of TNG. Happy to offer advice on getting back into Trek after a break.🖖🏻

I made a book! The fic is Mischief Managed by touchedglitter (who is me). This is pamphlet bound. The big thing I learned was that I need a better craft knife. These pictures show the cover & the interior. For process photos, see this Tumblr post.

“You dwell in my mind like a household spirit. All that I think is followed with, ‘I shall tell that thought to Eddi.’ Whatever I see or hear is colored by what I imagine you will say of it. What is amusing is twice so, if you have laughed at it.” Emma Bull, War for the Oaks 📚💬

In Star Trek: TNG, S5E11, “Hero Worship,” a kid asks Data what he thinks of a model the kid built. When Data expresses his aesthetic assessment the kid says, “You hate it!” Data tells him, “You are making an unwarranted extrapolation.” I’m telling my anxiety that from now on. 🖖📺

Your girl’s over here finding old Star Trek: The Next Generation fanfiction listed on Fanlore but not linked anywhere and digging it up in the Google Usenet archives, then adding the links to Fanlore. Peak Kimberly.

“…embodied writing is not in opposition to political writing. In fact, it is the kind of political writing that I am most interested in reading.” Melissa Febos, Body Work 💬

Mood update: the leaden feeling in my heart has been joined by a similar feeling in my stomach.

How do none of the early results in a Google Images search for Star Trek Bingo have something like “mysterious pathogen takes down whole crew” on them? It happened twice in season 1 of TNG & we got it in episode 2 of SNW. (It’s one of my favorite Trek tropes.) 🖖🏻📺

I have a craft essay about writing into uncertainty, contradiction, and grief in the new issue of @PhoebeJournal today. This one means a lot to me - it's part of a larger project I'm working on on uncertainty. I'd love it if you'd read it. https://t.co/gPML7tLRBg

— Meg Pillow (@megpillow) May 16, 2022

I saved this and waited 10 days to read it, which meant I read it exactly when I needed it. The phrase “the aesthetic of uncertainty” is something I sorely need. At the beginning of the year, I decided my phrase for at least the quarter would be “Embrace radical uncertainty.”

At the time, I chose this because as a caregiver and person living with chronic illness, it was something I needed to do to not constantly fight life. On 1/18 (my sister’s 36th birthday), my mom went to the ER & they found all her blood counts were low.

They diagnosed her with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and began putting a treatment plan in place. With the treatment plan in place, followed by the chemo putting her into remission, it seemed the path forward was clear.

The day after she was discharged from the initial chemo, she had a cardiac event. Then she suffered from a bout of colitis. Another cardiac event. Then muscle weakness such that she would fall and be unable to get up.

It felt like each week brought a new complication or side effect. This Wednesday, I took my 5 yo son to visit her, and learned that between preexisting spinal problems and chemo side effects, she is now paraplegic.

I live in a constant vacillation between hope and anxiety, optimistic each time a problem is actually identified and an intervention developed, riddled with anxiety each time a new problem appears.

All of this is to say: I really needed this piece. I thank you for writing it. I’m glad I waited to read it. I’m saving it to read again next time I need it. And maybe soon I’ll write something.

I don’t have the oomph to discuss this at length but my dad wrote a good journal entry for CaringBridge about the most recent impact of chemo on my mom. My heart is leaden today. At least there’s adaptive technology for sewing without using your feet.

The Michigan Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence has a really useful letter template for writing to congresspeople.

“As we honor the lives that have been given, let us also be grateful to be still on the journey.” “The enemy doesn’t care about my feelings, Captain, so I don’t waste my time having any.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Memento Mori” 🖖🏻💬

The world is very dismal and I am heartbroken, but my husband is on a meeting talking to people about how he was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream twice. I really love him very much.

Self-soothing by typesetting my 9 year old New Girl fanfic and it actually looks like a book.

I can’t neglect the world & focus on my child, because my child is in & of the world. I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of existential threats he faces even as I know he is playing life on easy mode. I struggle with where to begin to take action.

I have extreme MCU fatigue so I’m only going to watch the stuff clearly and closely inspired by comics I’ve actually read and enjoyed. 🍿📺🗯️

Me “well actually"ing last week’s Fansplaining in the car on the way to pick my kid up: “But Elizabeth the ‘In sleep he sang to me’ part is really low, even lower than you sang it. It gets obnoxiously high later.’” 🎙️🎵🎭👻👩🏻‍🏫

Not me putting a Lizzie Bennet Diaries gif in a work presentation. Nope.

I love a good slice-of-life story but the constant interruptions to Worf’s work once his son Alexander boards the Enterprise in the episode “New Ground” are far too real.🖖🏻📺

Apparently crows can do metacognition.

Want to read: The Gentrification of the Internet: How to Reclaim Our Digital Freedom by Jessa Lingel 📚

Symposium’s over, it’s 90F outside. Time for a wardrobe change! [Image description: A white woman with dark hair wears a black tank top with the Sheikah eye from The Legend of Zelda and black shorts with a popsicle 0rint.]